Hogfather

sharp bends that if they didn’t put a few twists in you, you wouldn’t stand a chance of fitting in. And they’d been conscientious and kind and given her a good home and even an education.
    It had been a good education, too. But it had only been later on that she’d realized that it had been an education in, well, education. It meant that if ever anyone needed to calculate the volume of a cone, then they could confidently call on Susan Sto-Helit. Anyone at a loss to recall the campaigns of General Tacticus or the square root of 27.4 would not find her wanting. If you needed someone who could talk about household items and things to buy in the shops in five languages, then Susan was at the head of the queue. Education had been easy.
    Learning things had been harder.
    Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
    She’d become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do. And she’d taken to it well. She’d sworn that if she did indeed ever find herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she’d beat herself to death with her own umbrella.
    After tea she read them a story. They liked her stories. The one in the book was pretty awful, but the Susan version was well received. She translated as she read.
    “…and then Jack chopped down the beanstalk, adding murder and ecological vandalism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, but he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you’re a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions. And now,” she closed the book with a snap, “it’s time for bed.”
    The previous governess had taught them a prayer which included the hope that some god or other would take their soul if they died while they were asleep and, if Susan was any judge, had the underlying message that this would be a good thing.
    One day, Susan averred, she’d hunt that woman down.
    “Susan,” said Twyla, from somewhere under the blankets.
    “Yes?”
    “You know last week we wrote letters to the Hogfather?”
    “Yes?”
    “Only…in the park Rachel says he doesn’t exist and it’s your father really. And everyone else said she was right.”
    There was a rustle from the other bed. Twyla’s brother had turned over and was listening surreptitiously.
    Oh dear, thought Susan. She had hoped she could avoid this. It was going to be like that business with the Soul Cake Duck all over again.
    “Does it matter if you get the presents anyway?” she said, making a direct appeal to greed.
    “’es.”
    Oh dear, oh dear. Susan sat down on the bed, wondering how the hell to get through this. She patted the one visible hand.
    “Look at it this way, then,” she said, and took a deep mental breath. “Wherever people are obtuse and absurd…and wherever they have, by even the most generous standards, the attention span of a small chicken in a hurricane and the investigative ability of a one-legged cockroach…and wherever people are inanely credulous, pathetically attached to the certainties of the nursery and, in general, have as much grasp of the realities of the physical universe as an oyster has of mountaineering… yes , Twyla: there is a Hogfather.”
    There was silence from under the bedclothes, but she sensed that the tone of voice had worked. The words had meant nothing. That, as her grandfather might have said, was humanity all over.
    “G’night.”
    “Good night,” said Susan.

    It wasn’t even a bar. It was just a room where people drank while they waited for other people with whom they had business. The business usually involved the transfer of ownership of something from one person to another, but then, what business doesn’t?
    Five businessmen sat round a table, lit by a candle stuck in a saucer. There was an open bottle between them. They were taking some care to keep it away from the candle flame.
    “’s gone six,” said one, a huge man with dreadlocks and a beard you could keep goats in. “The clocks struck ages ago. He ain’t coming. Let’s go.”
    “Sit down , will you? Assassins are always late. ’cos of style, right?”
    “This one’s mental.”
    “Eccentric.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “A bag of cash.”
    The three that hadn’t spoken yet looked at one another.
    “What’s this?